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Sky Render

Every time I see a comic about how Nintendo should just release their full back catalog on VC or just re-establish connections with third parties, I am reminded of a fairly recent Hyperbole and a Half allegory of people suggesting absurd solutions to a problem that they didn’t understand (in that case illustrated with dead fish). 1.) You don’t flood the market with content all at once, especially not when it’s effectively discount content that draws attention away from your new products. 2.) The third parties have actively rejected Nintendo for decades now no matter what Nintendo has done to try and bring them back (and they’ve done some pretty desperate things).

TheyCallMeTomu

This was my first impression as well, though I haven’t been following Nintendo’s efforts regarding the latter.

Recently a third party developer stated that Nintendo’s lead engineers were not familiar with Xbox Live or PSN. This developer complained about the lack of online support for the Wii U and asked Nintendo why they couldn’t make a system more like Microsoft or Sony. The engineers stated that “we are not familiar with those online services so there is no point in talking about them.” We all love Nintendo, but they haven’t even made any effort to stay relevant. How do you compete with other companies when you don’t even know what they’re doing?

For a while Nintendo could get away with just doing their own thing, but that doesn’t cut it anymore. They really need to embrace online gaming or at least make it an option with their first party titles.

I never said their strategy was perfect, because it clearly isn’t. That said, there are definitely reasons for why they do what they do. My suspicion with their inattentiveness towards XBL and PSN is twofold: to ensure that they can’t be accused of plagiarism of ideas from them, and because they don’t see themselves as being in the same market as those services anyway. Before you scoff at that, keep in mind that the XBL and PSN take the exact same attitude towards the app stores for iPhone and Android, as well as towards Steam. That said, Nintendo ignoring literally everyone else’s online offerings probably will come back to bite them in the bum in the long run (moreso than it has so far, even).

Blip

Ooooh… Online play with the DS and 3DS is possible no doubt. But how well that is working lies on a whole different ballpark.

I mean… have you ever tried Mario Kart on the first two generations of the DS? If not, try “online gameplay” and you know what’S up – or look for various comincs on that topic.

That and the consoles not sticking to more modern security standards in terms of WLAN. (WEP instead of WPA). Especially (again) the first generations. On that behalf, it’s partly Nintendo’s fault, and also the fault by third party devs that are like “you know what… funk online play”.

Then again, IMO online gameplay is IMO no the future – unless you’re a shooter fan. Nintendo always had focus on “party in front of the screen”. That started wtih the Gamecube (and Mario Party), and that continues on with the WiiU. The other companies (Sony/Microsoft) went away from that concept years ago. Even though four player adapters existed (PS2). But if there is no software dev that is being like “okay – 4 players, and no webplay!”, it’s bound to fail. All games these days are single player, and very crapped split screen. So no wonder that the users are being spoiled being like “I want me some online connectivity”.

Nintendo isn’t to blame here alone!

Though they do a lot of mistakes in terms of releases and rereleases. I mean… Mario 3D with cat suits? Pikmin 3 for WiiU but no rereleaseof Pikmin 1&2 New Motion as physical medium? DS releases (planned) for the virtual shop but no 3DS titles? Rerelease Windwaker with too much “bloom” (which can’t be turned off!), but leave Ocarina of Time (with better graphics!) on the 3DS? Why remove “backwards compatibility” on the long run? (I’m sure the Wii compatibility will be dropped eventually, just like the GC compatibility was with the “horizontal only” Wii’s), no other famous Nintendo IP’s so far on the Wii either.

These are IMO problems, not online capability. That, and third party devs refusing to take a risk on the WiiU. Especially now that it has the regular gamepad back again.

Darkness

That anonymous source was already debunked. Ninty is full aware of PSN and XLive.